WholeHearted Living
A space to root back into your wholeness and remember who you truly are. Each episode blends ancient wisdom and modern science, soulful conversation and grounded practice, to guide you home to yourself.
Here, we dismantle outdated paradigms of hustle, perfection, and “not enough”, and instead explore what it means to live, lead, and create from worthiness, belonging, and alignment with nature’s rhythms.
From embodied self-worth to nervous system healing, from identity work to soul-led leadership, The Wholehearted Living Podcast invites you to pause, breathe, and return to the ground beneath all growth: you are already whole.
New episodes every Thursday.
At the Wholehearted Living Podcast, our conversations don’t end here. To keep journeying together, visit www.whlinstitute.com to explore free resources, join our newsletter, or step into one of our programs.
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With a heartful of gratitude,
Debs
WholeHearted Living
S02 EP07 | Cultivating Compassion: Meeting Yourself with Kindness
In this powerful episode, Debs Thorpe gets vulnerable about her own journey with self-compassion, revealing how her relentless inner critic not only drove her to burnout but made her judgmental of others. Learn why self-compassion isn't self-indulgence, discover the "bus metaphor" that will change how you relate to your inner critic, and understand why stress and exhaustion make that critical voice so much louder. This is essential listening for high achievers who believe their inner critic is what makes them successful.
What You'll Learn
✨ Why self-compassion is not weakness - Research shows self-criticism decreases motivation while self-compassion increases resilience, creativity, and sustainable success
✨ The high achiever's dilemma - How your inner critic convinced you it's responsible for your success (and why that's costing you everything)
✨ The bus metaphor - Imagine all your parts (the Critic, the Nurturer, the Inner Child, the Coach) as passengers on a bus. Who's driving? What changes when you put your Coach in charge instead of your Critic?
✨ The demon or ogre truth - What to do when you're so depleted that your inner critic feels like a dark, relentless presence you can't escape
✨ Stress, exhaustion, and the sneaky return - Why you default to old critical patterns when you're depleted (and how to be compassionate with yourself about it)
✨ From critic to coach - Practical steps to shift from the voice that tears you down to the voice that builds you up
✨ Whose voice is this really? - How to identify where your inner critic came from (and why it's not the truth about who you are)
Keywords & Topics Covered
Self-compassion, inner critic, high achievers, burnout recovery, self-judgment, compassionate self-talk, nervous system regulation, trauma-informed healing, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, self-worth, emotional exhaustion, mental health, personal development, wholeness, self-care for high achievers, sustainable success, parts work, internal family systems, self-kindness, overcoming shame, healing from burnout, compassion fatigue, self-respect, mindfulness practices, somatic hea
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Thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing wholeness. Thank you for having the courage to tell yourself the truth.
Please do share this podcast far and wide to help us reach as many people as possible.
And as our gift to you, Debs has created the Rooted in Wholeness- a collection of grounding practices, journal prompts, and reflections that go deeper into season two's theme of Wholeness and Belonging. It’s completely free, and you can sign up to receive it online at www.whlinstitute.com.
And if you'd like to gift Debs a personal thank you, you can Buy Me A Coffee here, knowing it will fuel many more moments of inspiration.
Thank you for listening, supporting, and most of all, for walking this path of wholehearted living with us.